


Insomnia

by targaryenziam



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Vampire, But no one dies, Human Moon Taeil, M/M, Maybe a bit of meetcute? I'd like to think so, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Vampire Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, mentions of death occasionally
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/targaryenziam/pseuds/targaryenziam
Summary: Moon Taeil is the new student transfer with a bit of a secret: he's always unknowingly had dreams of his soulmate's memories for as long as he can remember, much as he is unaware of their true meaning. He just wants to get past the ridiculous crush he has on the mysterious boy in his Art History class, but a few things keep popping up in his way: one, the strange animal attacks occurring closer and closer to campus and second, the fact that said crush insists on inviting himself into his life and affixing himself there.Or a vampire au where Moon Taeil just wants to get past his junior year peacefully until he meets one Lee Donghyuck.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Moon Taeil
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic in this fandom, so hi! i read a lot of hyuckil fics, and noticed there was a criminal lack of vampire aus so you know what writers say. if there is a need, fill it yourself. or something like that, idk. i just really think the idea of human taeil and vampire hyuck is *takes picture* neat. if there is any mistakes in characterization w any of the neos be gentle with me please! i'm still getting a hold on writing hyuckil so bear with me if it's cringe bc this isn't edited in any way, so lol. also i know in like all the fics taeil is the older one as he is irl but idk i wanted to write haechan as the older one here since, like vampire hyuck. you know, just to stir things up around here a bit. this is all indulgence on my part and since i didn't write a halloween fic here is my own attempt. i've already started on the next chapter too so let me know if there's any interest! tbh i wrote taeil's pov so differently than i'd expected it to come out so... that is def new for me. edit: the title for the fic is from insomnia by zayn. anyways you can find me @hyuckilsten on twit uwu

The first day Taeil meets Donghyuck, he thinks he’s somehow stumbled into the wrong class.

He was pretty sure he was in the right building, but the troubles of a new school was fucking with him and even though he _had_ double checked the paper schedule in his hands a dozen times until the names on it had started blurring into one and sounding like nonsense in his head he was still half not sure—and so coming into his classroom and sitting next to a random person in the nearest open seat had his nerves at an all time high. It was so jam packed in the room. Taeil really had taken too long in stumbling around campus. He was late, and knew absolutely no one apart from his new roommate he had met only that day, and really, there was just no more possible way to be more stressed. His family had asked and _asked_ why he would go all the way to transfer even though he was in a good university already, his old friends having even asked the same. Pulling out a notebook and pencil hurriedly out of his bag, Taeil hopes they weren't right in thinking that he should’ve just stayed.  
  
He doesn't know. He's just praying this new school would work out.  
  
He doesn’t look at his seatmate until the professor, an older woman in her late fifties, walks in and introduces herself and starts running through her syllabus and over the expected work they’ll be doing for the semester—it’s just a required class of Art History, a requirement for a Music major like him—and someone clears their throat beside him. Taeil’s head perks up instantly, and he finds that he’s sat himself beside a boy with brown hair, and his breath catches a little when he sees a flash of tan honeyed skin and soft cheekbones and lips pursed in concentration as the boy stares ahead at the lecture Taeil should be listening to, but he can’t. Not when he’s somehow sat himself to one of the cutest boys he’s seen who’s also— _significantly younger than him?_ What the fuck, is he in the wrong class?

Dazed, Taeil looks around him to find that no, he’s not going crazy, everyone else attending is around his age. Except for a few people that look just only a few years younger than him. But not _that_ young as the boy sat next to him. So he’s not losing it, at least. Still, somehow he feels disjointed, shocked to his core. Not that it matters that the boy sat next to him is possibly just _that_ young, but maybe it does because he happens to be so attractive that once Taeil sees him his ears get an embarrassing level of hot.  
  
The whole time he’s buzzing so much in his seat with nerves that he only blinks when everyone around him gets up and starts leaving, unaware that the lecture had passed so fast. It’s only when the cute boy gets up beside him that he startles and begins hurriedly packing everything away, cute boy’s bag barely rustling as he picks it up and walks past Taeil without a sound, away and out of his life as fast as he had entered it. Taeil is left longingly staring at the back of his black jacket as he walks away.  
  
“You good? You look lost,” his roommate comments without even greeting him when Taeil comes back to their room that night, and he already likes Yuta, crazily enough. Even if he still feels shy around new people and Yuta’s lack of a filter. There’s something about Yuta that is friendly, brazen. “The first day that bad?”  
  
“No, it was good,” Taeil replies stiffly, before pausing and thinking. He might as well ask. “Hey, do you happen to know any younger students here?”  
  
Yuta looks interested at his turn of conversation, sat as his desk. “Yeah, I know a few younger years. Why?”  
  
“I just—I saw a boy today. He looked way younger than everyone else in my Art History class.”

After a pause, Yuta gives him an exasperated look. “And then what? Did you get his name?”

Taeil shakes his head.

“No. I was wondering if you knew him.”

“That’s not much to go off of,” Yuta points out. “But hm. Was he cute? Tall? Short?”

Taeil busies himself with tidying up his bed, not willing to look his new roommate in the eye just yet at that. “He was around my height, I think. And yeah. He was cute. Had brown hair, I think.”

When he turns around, Yuta has a playful smile that verges on sharp, even if it is bright. He’s one of those people whose faces light up with their smile, Taeil’s noticed—it had won him over instantly when they were first introduced, Yuta’s bright smile. Handsome as well, he had been surprised to learn that Yuta was an exchange student from Japan considering how fluent his Korean was. As far as roommates went, he finally lucked out. He already liked him far more than his old one who had complained about Taeil’s messes excessively and hated his constant music. The minute he had learned Yuta was studying music on a football scholarship he had breathed the loudest sigh of relief.

“Cute, you say,” Yuta teases. “Hm. I don’t know. I’ll make you a deal. I can’t tell you for sure who your mystery crush is, but I do know some people who might. Eat lunch with me tomorrow and I can introduce you. You’ll like it. They’re fun.”

Taeil makes a squeaking noise in his throat. “Um, okay, sure,” he gets out nervously. He smiles a little too forcefully, before climbing into bed. When he pulls the covers over himself and turns onto his side, he realizes too late what Yuta had said. “Also. He’s not my crush, you know.”

Yuta chuckles as he starts up some game on his computer. “If you say so, hyung.”

“He’s not,” Taeil replies in a low groan but it’s too soft and lost in the noise from Yuta’s game that he doesn’t even bother repeating it.

That night, Taeil ends up burrowing himself in his blankets grumpily, wondering why he was even bothering asking about a stranger that hadn’t even noticed him. At least his first day was over, and he had a roommate that he could actually stand. Despite the anxiety looming in his stomach, he sees himself possibly adjusting to this school eventually. And it’s a thought he can sleep easier with.

****

His first week goes by in a whir—he settles into his classes and finally starts to get used to the layout of the campus, discovers that even though he is fucking terrified of not knowing everyone like his old school it isn’t too intimidating after all. Yuta’s only too happy to introduce him to his group of friends, who consist of a collection of very different people that Taeil wonders how such a group even came to fruition. There’s Johnny, who is incredibly tall and welcomes Taeil with ease and a slight American accent, and Doyoung who is studying medicine and who Taeil learns is an active member of many student clubs, along with Taeyong who happens to be one of the prettiest people he’s ever seen and who attempts to take Taeil under his wing until ‘ _he gets more accustomed to the school_ ’, in his own words. That had been amusing as Taeyong, he learns, can talk one’s ear off with his shy rambling, even if it is all sweet. Taeil hadn’t the heart to tell him he already had a good idea of where everything was by then. Then there’s Ten, another exchange student like Yuta from Thailand, who he finds a bit witty and friendly enough to simultaneously intimidate and awe him. As a dancing major he invites Taeil to join him in some of his free practices, which he turns down out of pure shyness.

They’ve all been nice enough to welcome him into their group with open arms, something Taeil couldn’t be more thankful for. That had been one of his worst fears about switching schools so late in his degree—but this was Hanyang University. While his last school had been great, it wasn’t one of the top schools in Korea. Not like this school. He’s not surprised to find his classes littered with other music majors brimming with talent and knowledge. It has him feeling nervous. It’s definitely a step up already compared to what he’s used to.

However, even though his new friends are apparently pretty popular—a fact Taeil learns when they walk him around campus showing him new places and they don’t seem to notice the many people staring and gawking at them—it seems their reach doesn’t go very far. Not even they know who the mystery boy is in Taeil’s class, and it’s his luck none of them share it with him. Yuta even pats him on the shoulder in consolation once they realize.

“Don’t worry, Taeil hyung. We’ll find out who your man is if we die trying,” he promises, and earns a slap on the shoulder from Doyoung.

He has another Art History class that week where he walks in early enough to pick his own seat, and is happy to see the subject of his very thoughts walking into the room. The boy is wearing a casual black shirt this time, sans his jacket, and Taeil is suddenly reconsidering how much someone can look good in black because _fuck_. He has a bag slung over his shoulder, and it’s clear he could give less of a fuck where he sits unlike everyone else as he just sits in an random empty seat and proceeds to look bored as he mindlessly thumbs through his phone. He doesn’t even talk to or acknowledge the other person sat at his table. A loner then, Taeil decides as he glances at him hurriedly, trying not to seem like he’s staring. _Just who are you?_

He really is handsome—in a boyish way, even if he’s clearly in his twenties and has lean shoulders that nicely fill out his t-shirt. He’s all soft features and wide, dark eyes along with a pert button nose. Taeil doesn’t think he’s seen a more gorgeous face, and considering his new friends that was saying something. By the time he realizes he’s probably being obvious, the professor walks into the room and his attention is drawn somewhere else.

He doesn’t even get a chance to walk to him and say hi by the time class ends, either. The boy gets up and leaves before Taeil is even done packing his things, and just like that he’s gone. Another class gone by. Embarrassment floods him. What was he even doing?

This wasn’t him. He didn’t get— _infatuated_ with people, didn’t have little crushes. If he found someone cute, he either dated them or not. There was none of this embarrassing staring or pining he was doing.

Clearly his mind was too overly excited from his week. By the time he leaves, shaking his head at himself, he doesn’t see a figure stood outside the door in the hallway until it’s too late.

“Oomph,” he lets out as he bumps face first into a stiff set of shoulders, stumbling before he’s caught by a strong arm.

When Taeil looks up, it’s to wide eyes the color of black stars staring back at him, the very person he was just cursing himself over stood before him with a hand holding him in place. He freezes instinctively, lips parting, before the hand at his bicep disappears and the boy looks away from his gaze, face blank.

“Careful there,” he tells Taeil, flat and serious for someone who looks so cold in the pale lighting of the building’s hallway. Up close, his aura is much more intimidating, much so that Taeil ends up swallowing a little once he realizes how close they're standing. He sounds so assured for someone so much younger than him that Taeil can only blink at it, taken aback.  
  
“Sorry,” he says on autopilot, barely able to function with the touch of his hand still lingering on his arm, still hard felt. “I, um, wasn’t looking where I was going. Thank you.”  
  
The boy brings up a phone to his ear, which Taeil realizes he had been holding the whole time. _Oh._ He had interrupted him by bumping into him, how awkward. He simply nods at Taeil, not giving him more than a cursory glance that settles in a shiver on Taeil's skin however brief it is. He looks at him with a mere flick of his eye like Taeil is no more than a mere distraction. “You’re welcome.” Then he looks away, and somehow the breath goes out of Taeil as he hears the boy’s voice lilt into an annoyed tone as if he is a second away from punching whoever was on the other line. “Sorry. No, I don’t want to. Holy fuck Renjun, does it _sound_ like I would ever do that? I would rather stab myself.”

Taeil stands there dumbfounded as the boy begins to walk away still arguing into his phone, trying not to gape and failing. He just ends up clearing his throat and walking away quickly, hightailing it out of there. What a successful human interaction. He’s gone and embarrassed himself enough that he is most definitely not going to leave his dorm room for days _._ So much for being a junior classman.

So it turned out that the guy he had been thinking about all week was a little rude, certainly standoffish. _He’s hot and rude_ , Taeil thinks as he opens the door to his dorm building, _now I can finally have a reason to stop liking him so damn much._

 _Although I have a name now,_ he does think a moment afterwards. _Renjun. He said Renjun. Wait. Is that even a Korean name?_

That was it. He was not going to ask Yuta about it. He was not—

“Yuta-ah,” he says once he walks into their room and sees Yuta laid out on his bed with a computer laid out in front of him, “Have you heard of someone named Renjun?”

Yuta only blinks at his question. “No,” he replies and Taeil deflates. Then he moves one of his animal plushes aside—a gift from Taeyong, who had dropped by their dorm yesterday and said he had too many plushies his roommate was complaining about and then proceeded to drop a whole pile over both their beds to Taeil’s surprise—and moves to look at Taeil interestedly in that intense feline like way of his. He was learning that this was apparently a trait of Yuta’s, to focus in on whoever had his attention with near earnest concentration. Yuta was a bit eccentric, but Taeil was learning that practically all of his new friends were. He had learned that the hard way the first day he had met them and they had been comparing their best aegyo impressions when Yuta had introduced him. “Why? Did you finally find out your cute boy’s name?” There’s a mischievous glint in Yuta’s eye.

Taeil huffs in offense. “No,” he admits in defeat. “I didn’t. Also, he’s kind of rude. I think I’m good not knowing his name.”

“Rude?” His friend squawks. “How?”

“I bumped into him and he practically ignored me to argue with someone named Renjun on the phone.” It was a flimsy excuse to use to justify not liking him, he knows, as he had caught him from falling and been polite at least, but Taeil was a desperate man grasping at straws here. If this was what he could use to get over his stupid thing for a boy whose name he didn’t even know then who was he to argue about semantics?

“Ah, that does kind of sound rude,” Yuta tuts, thankfully taking his excuse. He narrows his eyes, deep in thought. “Wait. Renjun. That sounds Chinese. You know, I could ask Kun if he knows anyone with that name. Him and Ten know a lot of the Chinese students around here. You haven’t met Kun yet, have you?”

Taeil shakes his head. “No. Not really.”

“Perfect,” Yuta says, then he brightens. “I don’t think you’ve met Sicheng either. Oh do you have a lot to learn around here, hyung.”

“Apparently,” Taeil replies meaningfully, humming under his breath in acceptance. He lays himself on his bed, sighing as Yuta continues to tell him about Sicheng, another friend of his who he hasn’t met yet because he is still on break from a family emergency in China. He just accepts the new name and frowns, a little disheartened. While he met more people and learned their names by the day, there was still that damned boy whose name that still evaded him.

Whatever. He was good on not knowing it like he said. And he had meant it.

****

That morning, Taeil barely stumbles into the cafeteria before overhearing his new friends already arguing about something.

“I’m saying, we should probably stick together more now—“

“Oh, honey. Don’t tell me you believe the news.”  
  
Taeil can’t pinpoint their voices exactly just yet, but he thinks it’s Doyoung’s voice that is talking back to Ten. “I do, actually. Did you not hear what they said? No way that was an animal attack. That man’s bloody throat ripped out—“

By the time Taeil reaches their table with his food, Johnny is already visibly retching. “Guys,” he says, interrupting. “Can we not talk about this while we’re eating?”

“Talk about what?” Taeil asks curiously, already reading for a muffin on his tray. He meets Johnny’s eyes with a look of pity, and sees the others have already having finished half of their plates. Yuta is still sleeping up in their room, as he didn’t have class until eleven for once and he had told Taeil to “ _not wake me up for the love of God_ ”.

It’s only when a momentary silence falls over the table that Doyoung ends up breaking the silence, looking a little nervous. “You haven’t heard? There was a death last night. On the outside of Seoul. People are saying it was a wild animal.”

“Just the news you want to wake up to, of course,” Johnny murmurs sarcastically, looking now put out as he stares at his oatmeal.

“Doyoungie believes it was a _person_ that did it, not a wild animal,” Ten points out. He rolls his eyes as he points an accusing forkful of pancakes at Doyoung sat across from him. “I told you not to listen to the news. It’s all bullshit.”

Taeil can’t help but raise his eyebrows. “People die in Seoul all the time, though.” It wasn’t exactly as if the city was small.

“Exactly! Finally,” Ten gloats as he reaches over to pat Taeil’s shoulder appraisingly. “I knew I liked you for a reason. My sweet Taeil.”

Doyoung glares at him. “You can pretend it isn’t weird that an animal would kill a person this far in the city, but I won’t. Wolves or whatever don’t just walk into town and start killing people. You know I’m right, Ten ah.”

“Yeah, but no human can kill like that either,” Ten replies. Doyoung looks ready to shoot back a frustrated retort, but he’s cut off by Taeyong who only looks drowsy and irritated as he looks at the two of them arguing.

“Look, I don’t blame you for arguing with Doyoung. I would too. But it’s barely seven in the morning,” he gets out tiredly, rubbing a hand over his face. “Let’s be honest. I didn’t sleep well last night. My Art professor thought it’d be cool to assign a set of drawings on the fucking first week of class.”

“I don’t know whether to laugh or feel bad,” Johnny tells him, and there’s the end of that conversation. Taeil doesn’t contribute much to their discussion after that, still caught up on the mention of an animal attack.

He’d never heard of anything in that happening in well, real life. It sounded like a made up thing in shows. Out of sheer curiosity he ends up searching it right up on his phone there at the table, peering down in confusion at the results that come up. _Man Mauled By Wild Animal Attack in Seoul: A Mystery,_ one article title reads, and the next. They’re all about the death of a man that was found drained of blood with his throat mauled and nearly ripped out in one of the outer neighborhoods of the city, and so far there are no leads, according to the sites, but the perpetrator being an animal seemed most likely. Wow. While Taeil had been sleeping soundly last night to the sounds of Yuta’s anime shows, the man had already probably been dead. That was definitely a thought to chew on.

By the time everyone else is getting up from the table and packing away their trays, a last article at the bottom of the page catches Taeil’s eye. _Man, 37 Dead: Wild Animal or Murderer Loose In City_ , it reads. Before Taeil can click it, Doyoung is nudging him with questioning eyes and beckoning to where the others are walking away when Taeil looks up, and there’s just no time. It’s forgotten as is the thought of the man’s strange death as soon as he dumps his tray and falls back into line with his friends.

Instead, he finds himself laughing along as Taeyong and Doyoung start arguing over nothing, and he thinks for once that his life here won’t be so bad as he once feared.

****

Taeil’s always had a secret—he’s never told anyone else, but he didn’t always have it as easy making friends as he does now. As a child, he grew up assuming everyone had dreams like his, dreams where he lived through memories like a fish in water and woke up remembering each and every one of them vividly. Every night he’d go to sleep and wake up having lived another day in his dreams, only to be confused when it seemed like no one around him remembered them. He’d go flying on a plane or simply even just play his grand black piano in his room, do all these fantastic things in his dreams and remember things when he’d wake like how the piano keys felt under his fingers, or how it felt looking out the window of a plane and seeing the earth look so small under him.

When his classmates would ask he’d proudly tell them he’d been on a plane or traveled to Paris like he had in one of his dreams, that he could remember bits of French or other languages in his waking hours. It garnered him weird looks after a while, when his teacher eventually came to him and asked if his imagination was always so colorful. Eventually, the other kids called him a liar and began to avoid him, and once Taeil had tried to explain to them that he wasn’t a liar, his _dreams_ told him all that, and didn’t they all have their own days in their dreams too like him? Taeil had a piano in his, and an orange cat named Bongshik. It’d upset him so much when they’d all called him weird and a freak that he’d cried until his parents came and picked him up to take him home, and Taeil had been distraught. He’d told his parents about how the other kids were so mean to him about his dreams when it wasn’t fair because everyone had them too, and he’d remembered the confused and worried looks on their faces.

“Taeillie baby, what do you mean about these dreams? What dreams?” His father had asked, and after Taeil explained to them about the flying, the cat, the piano, the everything—the understanding disappeared from their faces. Instead, they held him closer and stared at him as if there was something wrong with what he said. When he’d started panicking and crying in response because the kids at school had looked at him the same way, he hadn’t realized words had been coming out of his mouth until a hand was on his chin and pulling him out of his fit of tears.

“Illie—who taught you those words?” His mother’s eyes were almost painfully wide in shock, and Taeil’s vision had been too blurred with tears to see anything beyond them. “Who taught you that?”

“Taught me what,” he had wobbled out, unaware of exactly what he had done.

“That’s Chinese he spoke,” his father spoke in hurried tones, sharing a baffled look with Taeil’s mother. “Son, did your classmates teach you those words you just said now?”

“No, no,” Taeil replied, shaking his head. He scrunched up his nose then, names from his dreams would often be forgotten when he’d wake up unlike everything else. He was lucky to even remember Bongshik, the other two cats’ names always seemed to escape him. “I…. The nice man spoke it to me, in my dreams. He’s my friend. It’s his… language.”

Both his parents had gone very still. “What friend?”

“My friend,” he spoke. After a long moment, his tongue formed the familiar name in his mouth as it came to him. It felt warm, comfortable akin to memories of long nights spent by a fire and laughing stories shared over food. Except he hadn’t done any of that, only in his dreams. “Jun… Junnie.” Even drawing the name from his brain felt like grasping water. He felt dizzy the more he tried to remember, and once he started to wobble on his feet his parents grasped at him with worry.

“Son,” he heard as he started to get woozy the more he tried to frantically think of the kind memories he had grown to treasure, the music that had filled his head ever since the first time he had a piano dream. “Son. Son!”

“ _Injun, is that you?”_ He found himself mumbling in that familiar tongue that felt different than the Korean he had grown up speaking, confused as everything went dark and he proceeded to wake in another waking dream. He was playing a guitar this time, strumming its strings beautifully to a tune as he sang sweetly at the top of his lungs, his voice so golden that Taeil lost himself in it. However, when he was only halfway through the song the man from before walked in the room, and an exasperated huff came from his lips. _“Injunnie, how many times have I told you to not bother me?”_ Came out of his lips in that familiar tongue, all before Taeil was jolted out of it by shoulders shaking him.

His parents had been understandably worried enough after that. Seeing him pass out in their arms mumbling in another language was enough to take him to therapy afterwards, and that was when Taeil had learned the hard way that his dreams hadn’t been as universal as thought. Overactive episodes of imagination, his therapist had explained it to his parents, a childhood thing. Where some children his age had imaginary friends, Taeil had dreams where he merely lived out his own imaginary friends. As for the Chinese, well, that was more hardly explained.

But what was even worse was the fact that his friends began to avoid him at school after that. It didn’t matter that he had done nothing wrong, his classmates had practically shunned him. Some of them even bullied him. Only after Taeil came home one day with a wet bag because someone had stuffed it into the toilet did his parents have enough and switched him schools, and things had thankfully settled after that. Taeil stopped talking about his dreams to everyone, and it was eventually forgotten. His parents stopped asking about it after a while, and he had finally gained friends at school so he had taken it as a meaning to never bring it up anymore. However, the experience still stuck with him for years, enough to the point where he got overly anxious over making friends until he had gotten to university as a bright eyed freshman, only to come to the realization that the world was bigger than him and his mere fears. With the things he’d learned over the years, even his silly dreams were forgotten in lieu of everything like term papers and research projects.

Still, though—sometimes he’ll hear a bit of Chinese being spoken from passerbys on the street, and he’ll startle at the bits of words he randomly will recognize. One time he’d accidentally clicked the wrong setting on a movie and watched it in Japanese before realizing, not because he’d been so engrossed in it but because he’d been able to understand everything. It comes and goes, he finds, some days he won’t know a word. Some days he can speak it with ease, some languages more than others. It depends.

He’s thought once or twice of mentioning to other people, but after his experience when he was young hell if he was ever voluntarily going through anything like that again. He didn’t even want to think of what they did to adults who went around proclaiming that sort of thing to the world. And so Taeil is left with this little secret to himself, an odd quirk that no one else ever has to know about.

It isn’t until a few days after the whole wild animal attack that the buzz over it settles down around campus, and people stop whispering in fear over it in favor of stressing over classes and the upcoming football team’s tryouts instead. Yuta, as a member of the football team, is already antsy about it, excited and bouncing around their room at six in the morning like Taeil isn’t currently trying to sleep his life away in his bed.

For the life of him, Yuta has his phone playing a song in Japanese at a low volume as he gets ready for the day, and it’s making Taeil’s head pound so much that he ends up giving up on trying to sleep and glares at Yuta. “Can you turn that off?” He asks, and apparently what he says is enough for Yuta to stop and do a double take at him.

“What? You speak Japanese?” He asks, eyes having gone wide.

“Huh? No I don’t,” Taeil replies back tiredly, putting his face in his pillow. “Yuta. It’s far too early for this shit.”

“But you’re literally speaking to me in Japanese right now,” Yuta’s voice rises, confused. “Hyung! I mean, Taeil! Why didn’t you ever say you could speak my language?”

Taeil lifts his head, opening his mouth to ask him what the fuck he’s on about when he goes to speak and realizes that his words have all jumbled in his brain without his notice. When he speaks, it’s with dread as he realizes that he _has_ been speaking to Yuta in Japanese without his notice ever since he woke up. The song in Japanese—was that what messed up his brain and caused it to switch languages? Oh no. “Oh.”

“Oh is right,” Yuta says matter of factly and when Taeil looks up he looks excited enough to learn another person can speak his language that Taeil’s mouth closes before he can think of saying anything. “Taeil. This is official. You’ve got to be the best roommate I’ve had so far. You’re like only the third person here I’ve met that can actually speak Japanese!”

Taeil’s pretty sure he’s hearing his voice come out faint distantly where he’s drifted to his mind in his panic. “Oh, is that right?”

“Yes that’s fucking right,” Yuta groans before going over to grab a ponytail band to tie his hair up into a ponytail. Taeil only distantly realizes that they’re still speaking in Japanese. “Dude, don’t think you’re getting out of this. When I get out of tryouts, we are so seeing how good you actually are.”

“Yay,” Taeil says halfheartedly. His friend only waves at him before grabbing his phone to go out the door with an excited bye in Japanese, leaving behind a frantic Taeil who realizes what of a mess he’s found himself now. Oh god. Japanese was one of his better languages, but that didn’t mean his fluency in it didn’t go back and forth like the others. What if Yuta started speaking to him one day and he had no literal clue what he was saying? How the hell would he explain that?

“Breathe,” he finds himself saying out loud, running a tired hand over his face as he breathes out his frustration. Great. Another thing that he let slip. Next he was going to be telling everyone about his dreams next at this rate.

At least this one was easier to explain, he decides as he gets up to go shower. Lying about being able to speak Japanese wasn’t going to be that bad. He could do a while little lie every now and then. And besides, it wasn’t that much of a lie. He could speak it sometimes.

“Fuck my life,” he makes sure to say under his breath in Japanese once he gets out of the shower, testing out his fluency then and finding it still there for now. Oh well. At least he had later classes today. He could afford to be a little lazier in getting ready.

Today he was going to be working on a piano piece for composition class, anyway—which was easy for him since he could compose melodies in his sleep. Literally as well, though he hasn’t dreamed for years. Somewhere after he'd hit the age of sixteen they'd stopped appearing, even though he'd had no explanation for why. Sometimes he'll find himself missing that grand black piano from his dreams just for a chance to hear the melodies it could produce, feel its familiar white keys under his fingers again as his own custom electric keyboard piano didn’t sound the same, but that was only a wistful wish.

A fool’s wish, really.

****

It comes least when he expects it, his mystery boy acknowledging his existence.

“Hi, is this seat taken?” He hears one day as he’s drearily typing up the last of an essay on his computer in Art History, and Taeil is pretty sure he looks like shit. Midterms are hitting him hard, and he had stayed up last night cramming an essay because he had forgotten to do it until the very last day of the deadline, something very disastrous and very idiotic of him to do. When he’d gotten up for the day he’d glimpsed deep purple eye bags under his eyes, and to make it even worse his hair refused to do anything other than stick straight up in the air. He’s wearing last night’s clothes since he’d been too lazy to do another load of laundry like he’d needed to, so he’s pretty positive he does indeed look like absolute garbage. Of all days, it has to be the one where he looks like an undead college student come to life that he lifts his head to see his slightly rude but very hot and attractive mystery boy staring nervously at him like he’s worried Taeil is going to whack him away with a broom stick.

Taeil only blinks at the sight of him, worried that maybe he’s lost it after pulling an all nighter. Yuta had offered him weed last night, and now he’s wondering if he had ended up taking it after all and he’s just having a hallucination. “What?”

“I asked if anyone was sitting here,” the boys enunciates clearly, not looking the slightest alarmed at Taeil’s appearance like he should be. Instead, his dark eyes almost seem—sympathetic. There’s a faint hint of something in them other than the cold indifference he had last time when they’d crossed paths, something almost warm. It’s then that Taeil decides he’s going crazy. “Or are you saving this seat for someone else?”

Taeil wants to laugh. Of all the people who his friends insisted on introducing him to, absolutely none of them were in this class. He wished. “No, no, you’re good,” he tells the boy on instinct before his tongue catches up with his brain and he feels the urge to curse at himself after he realizes what he’s gone and done.

There goes his automatic instinct to be nice to everyone as he physically can. Sigh.

“Okay,” the boy says after a moment, voice having gone softer and almost more shy. It’s an incredible juxtaposition to the way Taeil vividly remembers him cussing out an unlucky soul on his phone the last time they met. Amazing. Taeil watches him as he seats himself next to him and pulls out a simple notebook and pencil, before looking over to meet Taeil’s eyes once he feels his gaze on him. Somehow, Taeil doesn’t look away even though every inch of his body screams at him that he probably should.

“What is your name?” Taeil finds himself asking, not moving or squirming in his seat and a little proud of it. Ah. There was the confident part of him he knew was still in there.

“Lee Donghyuck,” the boy next to him says instantly, with not an ounce of hesitation. “But you can call me Haechan.” He smiles, and the previous blankness that had been there is gone like a clear day of spring melting away winter, his expression lighting up in a warm smile that has Taeil wondering for an insomnia driven moment whether angels really were an actual thing on this physical plane. The only thing even remotely comparable to the warmth in Donghyuck’s crinkled smile that he can think of is his one of his old dreams when he was a child—one of him laying lazily in a warm seat by a window as a cat napped peacefully by him, its golden fur lit up by the sunlight beams streaming through the glass of the window, a book in his hands as he’d hummed to himself, content. Content and warm, like the sunlight warming his body in his memory. It’s a memory that has been long buried in Taeil’s subconscious, one thats abrupt emergence jolts his body so powerfully that it has him inhaling sharply and almost coughing on mere air.

There’s a hand on his back. “Are you alright?” Donghyuck—no, Haechan—pats his back in concern, probably thinking of how weird Taeil is being and most likely considering never sitting by him ever again. “Dude. Breathe.”

Haechan— _that means fullsun_ , Taeil thinks deliriously as he finally gets back air into his throat and lungs, breathing in air at last with a slight wheeze. _It—fits him_. _What the fuck._

“I’m fine,” Taeil gets out as he starts taking in oxygen normally, getting a little too red in the face for his comfort under Haechan’s stare. He eyes the boba tea sitting on the table near him with venomous eyes, needing something to pin this tragedy of a social interaction on. Fucking boba tea.

“You sure? I have some water,” Haechan tells him, surprisingly gentle. Then he seems to see what Taeil is staring at as well. “I mean. I’m not sure if the stuff in that would, ah, clear your throat.”

“It’s probably what got stuck in my throat,” Taeil says quickly. Then he breathes out sharply, and looks up to the other boy sat next to him. “Oh, sorry. My name—it’s Moon Taeil by the way. Nice to meet you.”

That earns him a curious look and a slight quirk of lips in a half smile. If he's not mistaken, the other boy seems to straighten up a little more in his seat. “Moon Taeil,” Haechan replies as if tasting the name on his tongue. For some reason the way he says it slowly sounds almost strangely sensual enough to have something indecent fluttering in Taeil’s stomach. “Ah. Pretty name, pretty face. It suits you.”

“I—uh—what?—” Taeil begins to stutter horribly at that, because apparently he’s reverted into a fumbling teenager who so much as blushes or stutters if anyone looks in his direction. It’s awful. By the time he clears his throat, he manages to save at least some composure. “Um. Thank you. Your name is pretty as well.”

The words that come out of him are honest, even if they’re all mumbled out in a nervous ramble. Haechan. It rolled off the tongue nicely, sounded fitting for the boy before him with honeyed skin and a smile to compete with any blinding star. He wondered why he had two names—Donghyuck must be his real name by the way he had introduced himself with it first, and Haechan most likely a nickname. Still, though. He liked the fact that even his nickname was cute, it made someone as intimidating as Donghyuck seem more human and maybe even on a level as any other student.

“I’m sorry, do I make you nervous?” Donghyuck asks—and Taeil has to panic, because _what the fuck was he supposed to call him_ —and for a second it comes out calm and gentle, the question, almost suspiciously so. Taeil looks up with narrowed eyes and spies the small smirk hiding there on his lips. Donghyuck was smirking at him.

“No,” Taeil replies instantly, not blinking in the face of Donghyuck’s knowing smirk. Two could play at this game. It took a lot to faze him. “You don’t make me nervous.” Then he shoots him a smile.

This gets him a laugh. “Oh, I think I like you,” Donghyuck says as the professor begins to start talking, and there’s a glint of mirth in his eyes as he turns his head to the front of the room. He continues smiling to himself as if Taeil’s response had more than amused him, and it has Taeil letting out a soft huff of air as he turns to pay attention as well, aware of the boy beside him tapping his pencil softly against the open pages of his notebook.

He tries to pay attention to the lecture, he does, but a lot of it is drawn to the lax way Donghyuck sits in his seat and insists on tapping his pencil and doesn’t even bother to take any notes, unlike Taeil who is typing away at his keyboard hurriedly to get all of them down. He frowns a few times as he sneaks a few glances at where Donghyuck just sits, utterly relaxed, and once the professor has assigned them another reading due for the week he can’t help but stare once everyone starts packing up and he gets a good look at Donghyuck’s empty notebook.

“Uh, do you need to borrow my notes?” He asks, trying not to give off the impression that he’s wondering how the hell a younger classmate like Donghyuck is planning to pass this class if he isn’t even writing anything down.

Donghyuck only hums, and Taeil notices that when he scrunches his face in distaste he’s got a few beauty marks spattered across his cheeks, oddly making him even more beautiful even if his expression is unconcerned when he glances up at Taeil. “Hm. That won’t be necessary. But thank you.”

Taeil’s eyebrows rise up in his bafflement.

“You don’t need to keep any notes to study?”

“Listening is just enough,” Donghyuck states confidently. Then he seems surprised to notice Taeil has already packed up his things and instead gives him a look as if _he’s_ the one surprised Taeil doesn’t want to linger in an emptying classroom. “You’re leaving already?”

“Yeah, I need to get going to this study group in the library,” Taeil tells him, and then only realizes that perhaps there’s no need to tell a boy he just met this information. He bites at his lip, pausing as he considers. “Do you… maybe want to join me?”

“Maybe later,” is all the other boy replies, smiling tersely as if he’s just recalled something unpleasant. But his face lights up as he lifts his eyes to stare back at Taeil, looking almost amused with the upturned quirk of his lips. “I’ll have to join next time. Farewell, Moon Taeil.”

Taeil stares at him for a moment, taken aback. Did all people in this university talk like this or was this just a quirk unique to Donghyuck? “Um, okay,” he says, for lack of a better response, waving awkwardly as he begins to walk away. “Bye, Haechan.”

Donghyuck only nods at him as he leaves, lazily reaching over to pack up his belongings as he’s gone out of Taeil’s sight, the lone one still left in the deserted classroom. Taeil’s lungs suck in a large gulp of air once he’s a great distance away from the room and down the hallway, out of pure stress. What the hell? His heart is beating a little too fast in his chest for his comfort. He just walks a little faster to the library, trying not to think of how Donghyuck’s smirk had been a little too attractive for his own good and how much he had wanted to shiver hearing his name come from Donghyuck’s mouth. Yeah, nope. He was definitely not going there. Not ever.

He had even _invited_ him to hang out with him, why had he done that? There was something about Donghyuck he couldn’t put his finger on that made him want to stay far away, but yet simultaneously clamor to be closer in his presence. It was confusing. Dammit if this meant he was ever going to be one of _those_ people that were attracted to the cold but handsome type. That was not even remotely close to Taeil’s type. He usually went for sweeter, gentler types; the kind of people you could bring home to your parents if you were lucky. Not anything like Donghyuck. Donghyuck, well, he—he seemed above everything, and the fact that even he knew that and they’d spoken only once spoke bounds.

 _Lesson learned, do not invite people you find hot to the damn study group,_ he tells himself as he enters the library’s second floor, and sees his friends all scattered at their own large table. Booking it over to them, he’s relieved to see they’ve saved him a spot.

“Hyung! What took you so long?” Johnny asks as he scoots his seat closer to Taeil once he’s sat down. “You left me alone with these idiots. We thought you weren’t going to show.”

“I was only five minutes late,” Taeil laughs out as he relaxes, smiling at last as he sees Doyoung glare at Johnny for that remark, and once his friends start playfully bickering again he's a little glad they're too distracted to ask anything about his class or why he was running late unlike usual. Some part of him wanted to keep secret the way the very thought of Donghyuck made him confused, had turned him down. It felt oddly private to think of his friends knowing about him or the way he had smiled at Taeil with enough warmth that he could still vividly remember it even there in the library.

Maybe it would’ve been different if Donghyuck had came with him after all. Maybe… this one he would keep to himself.

He’s broken out of his thoughts by the sound of an offended cry from someone, not clear on who. Then Ten starts ranting about how they were all idiots and clearly he was the smartest among them all, and then he’s slipping into the easy comfort of their group for a second, all previous thoughts forgotten as Yuta starts a story about the time Ten swindled all their alcohol at a party once and he’s too busy giggling to give it any other thought.

****

That night, after Yuta’s gone to sleep and they’re both laid out in their mattresses barely just fit for one person, Taeil finds it hard to sleep. Their room is covered in absolute darkness other than the low hum of Yuta’s computer’s power button at his desk, and for some reason it almost feels lonely, the darkness in the room. Taeil’s surrounded by the soft plushies leftover from Taeyong in his blankets, a teddy bear one in his arms and another by his feet. Yuta’s long gone to sleep ever since he had quizzed Taeil’s knowledge in Japanese, which was really just him carrying a conversation and seeing how far Taeil could respond to him, his dark blue head of hair sticking out from his pillow from where he snores softly across the room. Where before their voices had filled the low hum of the room, it was almost desolately quiet now, the silence. Taeil has to shift his head to peer up at the nearby moonlight coming in from the window by his bed, but there is not much of it to be found. A new moon hides behind the blackness of the night sky, only faint stars visible in the dark field of the sky from his little view.

Taeil stares up at the sky, not being able to help the ache in his chest. It feels… odd. He’s always felt lonelier without the moon, but for some reason that doesn’t feel like that sentiment had originated from _his_ memories. Rather somewhere else, somewhere long forgotten. Somewhere that felt like the scrape of guitar strings against his fingers and long forgotten days drifted away in beautiful music whose melodies still hummed in his blood.

 _Where are you?_ He finds himself asking his mind in the darkness, calling out in curiosity. The longer he stares at the empty sky, the more he finds himself feeling sad, weighted with loneliness. Like he’s lost something he didn’t know he even had.

He falls asleep like that, hand hanging off the side of his bed as he closes his eyes, reaching for something he’ll never find as the noises of Yuta’s breathing lull him to sleep.

_Taeil is…. weak. Hurt. It’s all he can feel, the blinding pain. It’s agonizing. Somewhere amongst the pain, he cries out rawly for his mother, his father. The hard cobblestones of the street are unforgiving on his back as he tries to scramble up to sit up, anything. But he can’t. It hurts so much—_

_Blood fills his mouth, all he can choke on despite himself._

_It hurts. Every inch of him wants to scream, but all he can muster is a weak cry. He doesn't even know if anyone is nearby to hear him._

_A flash, it had all happened so fast. Too fast. He had been leaving the shop when—the knife had cut so deep going in his chest—_

_His siblings, he thinks deliriously in paralyzing fear as he feels the life drain out of him, onto his wet glistening hands darkened with his own crimson blood. There’s so much of it. His parents. They won’t know he’s hurt. He’s supposed to be locking up the shop for them, him, the son they take so much pride in. His little sisters, his little brothers—there won’t be anyone to take care of them anymore. He bleeds out onto the street, every intake of breath pushing out the blood pouring out of him. No one comes to help him. No one will. He is weak, doesn’t even feel it as his tears fall onto the dark cobblestone beneath him._

_“Help,” he can only try to call out, but the blood is too thick in his mouth, makes him cough on its metallic taste. “Help.”_

_He is going to die. It hurts so much. He is going to… die._

_Taeil's afraid. Aching. Scared—so scared that he can only feel the sob crawling up the back of his throat—_

_Somewhere above him, the moon is looming full in the sky, illuminating. Beautiful. He can only take one last look at it before his eyes start closing and he hears a frantic voice calling to him, hands at his cheeks and arms as he drifts away, faint. Faint as a blooming memory drifts across his eyelids, of a face he’s never seen before. Of an unfamiliar boy staring at him with so much fondness that for a moment, the pain disappears. All sensations of the world around him disappear, the feeling in his hands, his body. Just for a moment. Then it all slams back into him, a name thick on the tip of his tongue as he realizes he can't feel anything other than the pain anymore._

_“Taeil,” he breathes out desperately in his last breath, the aching wound in his chest tearing and clawing at him inside, everything fading from his fingertips. Then the world fades to black._

Taeil wakes in his sheets afterwards, tears still wet on his face and a hand grasping at his chest. It takes a frantic Yuta shaking him awake to get him to even realize he’s still sobbing.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are def appreciated!! and so are kudos ♡


End file.
